Skip to main content
Trace Learn

Non-verbal Reasoning · Attribute

Track fill and line style

Track shading, fill, or boundary-line changes while holding geometry apart.

Practise it now

Every figure has a two-letter code. Work out what each letter is telling you.

This exercise practises track fill and line style alongside its own main skill, Code Breaking.

It covers most of this skill rather than all of it.

Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.

A worked example

One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.

Following the shading

Look at how the shading changes, and leave everything else alone.

Nothing here changes shape or moves. The shading goes two steps darker.

A
B
C
?

Analogy: a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it is to a dark grey shield with 4 dots under it as a pale grey shield with 3 dots under it is to what? The pictured terms are a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it; a dark grey shield with 4 dots under it; a pale grey shield with 3 dots under it. The pictured options are a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it; a white shield with 1 dot under it; a dark grey shield with 3 dots under it; a white shield with 4 dots under it.

a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it is to a dark grey shield with 4 dots under it as a pale grey shield with 3 dots under it is to what?

  1. a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it
  2. a white shield with 1 dot under it
  3. a dark grey shield with 3 dots under it
  4. a white shield with 4 dots under it

Answer: a dark grey shield with 3 dots under it

How you get there

The only thing that changes between the first two figures is the shading: a pale grey shield with 4 dots under it becomes a dark grey shield with 4 dots under it, so the change is two steps darker. Making the same change to a pale grey shield with 3 dots under it gives a dark grey shield with 3 dots under it.

Why the other answers tempt

A figure that changed shape or number instead of shading has not followed the rule, however different it looks.

If they are stuck, say this

Count the steps along the shading from white to dark grey, then move the third figure by the same number of steps.

Now do it live in The Decoder

How each of these 2 exercises teaches it

The Decoder

Every figure has a two-letter code. Work out what each letter is telling you.

This engine’s own main skill is Code Breaking. It practises track fill and line style alongside it, and covers most of it rather than all.

A code system gives each POSITION one job. Here the first letter always reports the shape (R = circle, B = square, P = triangle) and the second always reports the filling (X = solid, Y = striped, Z = outline). How many copies there are is a decoy - it never touches the code. The way to crack any code is to hunt for two examples that differ in exactly one letter: whatever changed about the picture is what that position encodes.

  1. Step 1. Crack the code. Tap the letters. Watch which figures light up - that tells you what each letter means.
  2. Step 2. Encode it. Now write the code for the new figure. Drag letters into the slots.

What to say if they get stuck

  1. Tap a letter under a figure. Everything that shares its secret lights up.
  2. Find two figures whose codes differ by only ONE letter, then spot the one thing that changed about them.
  3. The first letter never changes when only the filling changes. So what must the first letter be about?

Open The Decoder on its own page to share it

Matrix Machine

Build the missing piece. Two rules are hiding in this grid - one runs across, one runs down.

This engine’s own main skill is Matrix Reasoning. It practises track fill and line style alongside it.

A matrix hides one rule per direction. Across the rows, the shape stays the same - star, moon, diamond. Down the columns, the count climbs 1, 2, 3 and the fill goes outline, striped, solid. The missing cell sits where row 3 meets column 3, so it must obey both at once: three solid diamonds.

What to say if they get stuck

  1. Read one row at a time, left to right. What never changes along a row?
  2. Now read one column at a time, top to bottom. Two things change as you move across the columns.
  3. Row 3 is the diamond row. Column 3 always holds three shapes, filled in solid.

Open Matrix Machine on its own page to share it

What usually goes wrong here

  • Treats a fill change as a shape or position change.

This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on track fill and line style, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.

How track fill and line style differs from the skills beside it

The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: track shading, fill, or boundary-line changes while holding geometry apart, and it stops where do not infer a rotation from fill alone.

  • Track object count

    Track how the number of visual elements changes across figures. Count is the target attribute; shape identity is secondary.

  • Compare visual attributes

    Compare shape, position, angle, number, size, or shading across figures. One named or inferable attribute change.

  • Complete a visual matrix

    Combine row or column rules to select one missing figure. At most two independently stated visual rules.

Related non-verbal reasoning skills

All non-verbal reasoning 11+ skills

Questions parents ask about track fill and line style

Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.

Track shading, fill, or boundary-line changes while holding geometry apart. It is one of 22 named non-verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the attribute strand, and this page carries 2 interactive exercises that practise it.

One wrong answer is a slip, the same wrong answer every time is a habit

A free diagnostic looks at which mistakes repeat across all four subjects, not just whether track fill and line style was right on the day.

Start the free 11+ diagnostic